A Tale Of Two Spurs, Conte Is Up & Running – Match Stats

Antonio Conte welcomed Marcelo Bielsa to White Hart Lane earlier this afternoon as Tottenham Hotspur went on the hunt for his first Premier League win and three points against hard working Leeds United.

It was a slow and sluggish start from Spurs, with the visitors seeing far more of the ball and making inroads through our defence, but in fairness, we were never really in any danger – albeit posing no danger of our own either.

It had largely been a half to forget again, until the sucker punch moments before the stroke of half time as they took the lead. The worry again was we only had two efforts ourselves across the 45 minutes, but had failed to register a single shot on target.

So, would we wake up in the second half and put in a performance we know we are capable of?

It looked promising as Harry Kane had a guilt-edged chance seconds after the restart, but he saw his effort saved. Just when you thought it might be a sign of things to come, we had to rely on Hugo Lloris to ensure we weren’t two goals down.

As we headed towards the hour mark we also had a good shout for a penalty as Son Heung-Min looked to be tripped in the box, but it wasn’t enough of a touch to convince VAR to award it, however, there was a bit more about us now. A few minutes later we were back on level terms as Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg made no mistake with his chance.

Kane really should’ve made it 2-1 a few minutes later, but in fairness, the defender got a good block in. At least we’d definitely woken up by now.

After Lucas Moura was cynically taken down, Eric Dier stepped up for the resulting freekick just outside of the box, but he saw his effort bounce off the wall and onto the woodwork (again), but a quick thinking Sergio Reguilon was the first to react and put it in the back of the net.

Leeds almost replied immediately and claimed a penalty for a Kane handball in the box, but VAR was rightly having none of it.

After that mini splurge, the game largely petered out for me, although Conte remained animated on the sidelines.

There was almost a late flourish in stoppage time, but the offside wasn’t even debatable.

2-1 – Conte’s first three points and we were a lot better in the second period, but still nowhere near as good as we know we should be.

Tottenham Hotspur				Leeds United
Hojbjerg (58), Reguilon (69)				James (44)
Lloris				Meslier
Emerson Royal				Llorente
Tanganga			68	Phillips
Dier				Cooper
Davies				Struijk
Reguilon			79	Forshaw			72
Hojbjerg				Dallas
Winks				James
Lucas Moura			88	Klich			59
Son Heung-Min				Harrison
Kane				Gelhardt			87
Substitutes
Doherty				Firpo			59
Sanchez			68	Roberts			72
Gil				Klaesson
Rodon				Cresswell
Sessegnon			79	Drameh
Alli			88	McKinstry			87
Gollini				Greenwood
Bergwijn				McCarron
Ndombele				Jenkins

Game Statistics
13	Goal attempts	18
4	On Target	7
4	Corners	8
11	Fouls	12
1	Yellow Cards	4
0	Red Cards	0
43	%	57